THE ISSUES OF LIFE 295 



and we know in point of fact that incalculable myriads of 

 minute creatures flourish in the open sea without over- 

 crowding. Moreover, the length of an organism's life is 

 adjustable, and can be regulated in relation to the rate of 

 increase. (2) It is conceivable that all animals might have 

 been vegetarian and debris-eaters. To a much greater degree 

 than was previously supposed the animals of the sea-floor 

 depend upon detritus, the crumbs of the littoral table. Or 

 much more might have been made of symbiotic partnerships 

 between animals and plants, — so extraordinarily successful 

 in cases like Radiolarians, of which some authorities say 

 that there are five thousand species. (3) There is no neces- 

 sity that life should be continually vexed by environmental 

 vicissitudes, for there are monotonous conditions in which 

 it flourishes bravely. We know, for instance, of the rich 

 fauna of the great oceanic abysses — that strange, dark, cold, 

 calm, silent, plantless world where there is neither day nor 

 night, neither summer nor winter, but eternal monotony. 

 We see, then, that the struggle for existence is not an in- 

 evitable consequence of the conditions of life. In fact, it 

 is often evaded. Reduction of the number of offspring is 

 an evasion of the difficulty of finding foothold in crowded 

 areas; change of diet, e.g., to vegetarianism, evades the 

 necessity for cannibalism; and migration often evades the 

 thrusts and arrows of an unfriendly environment. The true 

 inwardness of the struggle for existence is discerned when 

 we fix our attention not only on the limitations and difficul- 

 ties, but on the self-assertiveness and insurgence of the crea- 

 ture, which insists on having its own way. 



A second point is that the struggle for existence is not 

 synonymous with great mortality. That may be a problem 

 in itself, but it is not the problem of the struggle for exist- 



